THE FOOTBALL CONFEDERATION GOLD CUP 2000

Preview

The Gold Cup in 2000 is the fifth edition of the tournament to decide the regional champion of the North America, Central America and the Caribbean areas. The tournament ran from February 12-27, 2000 in the USA with matches being played in Miami, San Diego and Los Angeles. There are guest teams, from outside the region, in the 2000 tournament. These are Peru, South Korea and Colombia. These teams join nine others from the region to from four groups of three in the first round.

History

USA and Mexico have dominated this tournament as the two strongest teams of the region and entered the 2000 tournament as favourites. The previous results in the final are:

Tournament

After the group stage the four first placed teams played the four second placed teams in the quarter-finals. Jamaica, World Cup 1998 qualifiers, were knocked out after losing to both Honduras and Colombia. Surprisingly all the group winners lost with three times champion Mexico being beaten by a golden goal by Canada, two of the guest teams; Colombia and Peru finally showed the good from lacking throughout the group games and Trinidad & Tobago won. Colombia won 3-2 on penalties against USA, the other favourite and Peru won 5-3 against Honduras in one of the most exciting games throughout the tournament. The four teams in the semi-finals were surprising and the winners of the matches were Colombia and Canada. In the final Canada stopped a guest team from winning for the first time with a 2-0 victory. A full list of results are shown below:

Group Stage

Group A

12/2 Colombia 1-0 Jamaica

14/2 Jamaica    0-2 Honduras

16/2 Honduras 2-0 Colombia

Group B

12/2 USA        3-0 Haiti

14/2 Haiti         1-1 Peru

16/2 Peru         0-1 USA

Group C

13/2 Mexico     4-0 T & T

15/2 T & T       4-2 Guatemala

17/2 Guatemala 1-1 Mexico

Group D
13/2 Costa Rica 2-2 Canada

15/2 Canada      0-0 Korea Rep

17/2 Korea Rep 2-2 Costa Rica

Quarter Finals                                     PENALTIES

19/2 USA          2-2 Colombia                  2-3

19/2 Honduras   3-5 Peru

20/2 Costa Rica 1-2 T & T

20/2 Mexico       1-2 Canada

Semi Finals

23/2 Colombia    2-1 Peru

24/2 T & T         0-1 Canada

Final

27/2 Canada       2-0 Colombia

Overall

Canada were the surprising winners of the tournament. They had to qualify because of their poor recent international soccer results and were just hoping that this tournament would be the beginning of an effort to re-establish themselves as a major force in the region. This was achieved in even more spectacular fashion than many fans could have hoped for. They were lucky though; there was a coin toss to determine who would finish second and would qualify for the quarter-finals and who would finish third between Canada and Korea Republic. Canada won this, beat Mexico with a golden goal from Richard Hastings and went on to win the tournament. Craig Forrest, their goalkeeper was named Player of the Tournament

Awards

Player Of Tournament         - Craig Forrest (Canada)

Newcomer Of Tournament - Richard Hastings (Canada)

Fair Play Award                 - Canada

Team Of Tournament          - Craig Forrest (Canada)

                                          - Rafael Marquez (Mexico)

                                          - Jason De Vos (Canada)

                                          - Ramon Ramirez (Mexico)

                                          - Cobi Jones (USA)

                                          - Arnold Dwarika (T & T)

                                          - Roberto Palacios (Peru)

                                          - Russell Latapy (T & T)

                                          - Carlo Corazzin (Canada)

                                          - Carlos Pavon (Honduras)

                                          - Faustino Asprilla (Colombia)

Top Goalscorer

4 - Carlo Corazzin              - Canada

3 - Carlos Pavon                - Honduras

2 - Juan Francisco Palencia - Mexico

2 - Roberto Palacios           - Peru

2 - Arnold Dwarika            - T & T

2 - Cobi Jones                    - USA

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